Monday, July 27, 2009

Seriously! You think AG's joking? Now, would I do that to you? Well ... not this time. Check this out...!

There you go ... and you thought I was joking? Sheesh.

More soon, guys, I promise. I've been working way too hard lately, and have been neglecting this blog, and my gay book blog, too. One of the things that's been taking time has been hanging out on the GLBT Bookshelf, too ... but who could resist that?! Have you see it yet? No? In that case, you need to find out what you're missing: GLBT Bookshelf -- go there now!

Saturday, July 18, 2009

For the first time in several months, I actually have the time to post something here ... I can't believe all the great things I've had to let slide on by, because working doesn't leave any time for blogging. But this, I have to share with you. Dishy John Barrowman joins La Cage, right? And the result ...!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Congrats are in order to the entire Stargate crew. TheMGM newsletter was just delivered, with these words:

We are pleased to announce that the Stargate franchise is nominated for 22 LEO Awards. In addition, executive producers Brad Wright and Robert Cooper will be receiving the Outstanding Achievement Award at the ceremony.

...and here's the ones you've been waiting for:

Best Lead Performance by a Malein a Feature Length Drama: Michael Shanks – Stargate: Continuum

Best Lead Performance by a Female in a Feature Length Drama: Amanda Tapping – Stargate: Continuum

Not much you can add to that. It's been a long haul, but the couple have been separated for the last couple of years. One imagines, Mel's beliefs (being a staunch Catholic, which Robyn isn't, and holding some pretty whacked-out idea regarding the Jewish race, which Robyn doesn't share) would drive a wedge between them.

I've always been fascinated by Robyn Gibson, because she's a South Australian lass, like self. In fact, she was the friend of the daughter of the guy who used to do a lot of printing for me, about 30 years ago! I used to get "Mel Gibson stories" from my printer, back in the Days of Yore when very few people outside South Australia knew who the hell Mel Gibson was!

This is the second time recently that Robyn has been in the news, and it was sad last time, too:

THE family of Hollywood star Mel Gibson has made a sad journey to Adelaide - to farewell the father of his wife, Robyn Moore.Bill Moore, 85, died peacefully on October 10, at Ashford Hospital.The funeral was held at the Mawson Chapel, Centennial Park yesterday.It is believed Gibson, 51, did not make the journey from the US with his wife and children for the service.Bill is survived by his wife Nancye, children Susan, Robyn and Michael, and 12 grandchildren -- including Gibson and Moore's seven children -- and one great grandchild.Gibson met Robyn, a dental nurse, in Adelaide in the late 1970s, soon after filming the first instalment of Mad Max.The pair were housemates, who became best friends, then eventually lovers. They dated for six years, then married in 1980.http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22591253-5006023,00.html

Now, let's go back to happier days, when the world (and certainly mel, Robyn and Aricia!) were all a hell of a lot younger...

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Is it really possible that Ewan McGregor is 38 years old today?! Good lord ... AG takes a moment out and looks at the calendar ... is it. Woah. Where does time go?

Seems like only yesterday we were watching the new Obiwan Kenobi. And Brassed Off! -- which has to be my favorite of Ewan McGregor's movies, and that's saying a lot, because he's made some great ones.

Here's a bit of trivia for you: he's short sighted. Like yours truly! You might recall the serious eyeglasses you saw in The Long Way Round ... no joke. Those are the real deal. (He's also one of those guys who looks just as dishy with the spectacles on. Like Johnny Depp, for a start.)

So -- Happy Birthday, Man! Many more of 'em!

And now, shut up and paste in the eye candy, AG. I hear you growling, so ...

Sunday, March 29, 2009

And it's a big, loud HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Christopher Lambert, who turns 52 today! Can you believe that? It only seems like yesterday that I was drooling -- uh, watching, uh -- well, yes, all right, drooling my way through Greystoke. Never mind Highlander!

I have some fantastic memories surrounding Christopher Lambert, whose movies don't seem to get a lot of publicity downunder, so it's easy to miss them. One of my favorites is the off-the-wall comedy he did with Christopher Loyd, Why me? I laughed and laughed. Love the scene with the piano...

It's astonishing to go over to CL's page at IMDb and check out the amazing list of credits he's assembled. I have one monster wish: to see Vercingetorix. Not likely to happen, I know, but I can wish...

Saturday, March 28, 2009

And an editorial note here ... thanks gazillions to Jade (who is the cover artist for DreamCraft and Mel Keegan) for the spanking new header for this blog! I think it looks amazing, and it also reflects where most visitors are coming from, and what they want when they get here!

In fact, you might be interested to know a few stats on this here blog, since there's over 100 posts up now, and visitors from every part of the world are browsing through as if it were a magazine ... which I suppose it is, really!

About 40% of all visitors follow a link or an image or a Google search of some description (blog, web or image) for ... Johnny Depp!

Johnny Depp's tattoos are the most popular single feature on the blog!

Followed a close second by Viggo's tattoos -- and then by Viggo himself.

Next up, folks follow links and threads and wind up here on the trail of Elijah Wood...

And about equal numbers of people are looking for Elijah Wood and Christian Bale; and finding it here!

Next, James Spader, without or without the long hair (but searches and visitor "came from" links show a definite preference for "with").

And Richard Dean Anderson is right up there with James Spader, Christian Bale and Elijah Wood, in terms of how many visitors are looking, and searching.

After that -- well, it's a free-for-all, with an absolute gran-bag of everything on the blog.

You'll have noticed the "Link Within" widgets ... I added this service about two weeks ago, and it really has added value to the blog. Visitors like it, and many wind up browsing from topic to topic ... a few have stayed for an hour!

I'm not so sure about the "Snapshots" feature, though. I know it's popular on a lot of sites (like Live Journal and (Wordpress) but I'm not totally "sold" on how it works here.

But I have checked out my Statcounter stats and made a note of what visitors are downloading as "keepers." Guys: you're sussed ... ie., I know what you like! Therefore, I can "keep it coming." And let's be honest, there is never a shortage of stuff to babble about!

Many thanks to all who have supported the blog with a click or two on whatever interesting advertising has come along. I appreciate it!

The next thing I want to add to the site here is a Movie Shoppe. Stay tuned...

Friday, March 27, 2009

As a kind of post script to the last entry in this odd journal, I'm going to talk about Viggo again for a couple of minutes, and his new movie, Good.

I was over at YouTube, getting the trailer to plug in here, and couldn't help noticing that there's a bit of a furore brewing up over there. Most of it is about Nazis, Germans, Jews, Israelis, Palestinians and so forth -- and I really don't want to get into that ... I'm not qualified, honestly! There's people who know 100 times what I know, about all those subjects, and they're out there on the web, whanging it out all the time: they've said everything, fifty times each. Nothing left for me to add, and if I did, I'd either get it wrong or get everyone steamed.

But one thing on the discussion about the movie, Good, that seemed (to me) to be silly enough to be worth a post here is this:

A fair few people say they're "bothered" be the fact that Viggo and Jason Isaacs are playing the parts of Germans, using English accents. Apparently these viewers would have preferred to hear Viggo and Jason speaking with German accents.

Hunh?! Here's the problem. We hear German accents when German people speak English. But in Good, all the characters are German, speaking German, as German native speakers, in Germany.

No way in the world would you hear German accents! Think of it like this: the whole movie has been translated out of German into English. You just wouldn't, shoudn't, couldn't, hear an accent like Max von Sydow speaking English! (And incidentally, I could listen to Max von Sydow all night.)

Making a movie about Germans speaking German in Germany, they only had two choices: 1) have everyone speak German and subtitle it; or, 2) have everyone speak English that sounds as perfect to the ear as proper German would sound to native German speakers.

Now, the question of "should Viggo be speaking with an English accent?" comes up ... and it's pretty plain to me that since all the characters are German etc. etc., then you have no choice but the stabilize the accent used in the movie to ONE accent. Jason Isaacs is English -- so is everyone else in the cast ... I know, because I bothered to go to the movie's IMDb page and check! So, since they're all English barring Viggo ... if someone wanted to have Viggo speaking with his American accent or his Danish accent, they'd have to coach everybody else in the movie to speak with the same accent as him ... that's a huge amount of work, to make 10 people match up with one!

Why bother, when Viggo already "does" a gorgeous English accent (Aragorn), so he can mesh with the rest of the cast without problems.

This seems to be such a weird thing to me. It's just about the last reason I could think of for people saying, "I'm bothered by an American speaking in an English accent, playing a German." I mean -- duh. It's so obvious, I shouldn't have to be saying this!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I'm in a Viggo mood today ... because he's been on the box promoting GOOD, which is just one of his new movies.

So, what the hey? Let's have some Viggo stuff today.

Let's start with the GOOD trailer ... which is a marvelous piece of filmmaking in itself. Listen to that accent! Viggo is "doing" the gorgeous British accent we heard in Lord of the Rings. Aragorn speaks! Have a listen to this...

This is going to be such a good movie. Next ... since we're on the subject ofaccents and languages, you have to check this out:

Being bilingual would be fantastic. I always wanted to speak a second language. Viggo, it turns out, speaks at least three. He did CAPITAN ALATRISTE in the Spanish language:

And yes, I have a copy of ALATRISTE ... in Spanish ... with English subtitles, thank heavens, or I wouldn't get one word in three of what's being said!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

When's the last time you took a long, hard, serious look at anime, and digitally animated movies, not to mention the games that either spin off them or spawn them?

You might not have looked in a while ... I haven't. I just did. I'm fairly speechless here (and for AG that's saying a lot).

What can I tell you? There's going to come a time when human actors are going to be out of work! What they're doing with animation these days is aready enough to blow you away ... you know what this is going to be like in another 10 years?!

Take a squizz at this ... and think of Storm Comstantine's Wraethu while you're squizzing ... because both these characters are guys -- namely Sephiroth and Cloud, villain and hero, from Final Fantasy.

On 16 February, the BBC One breakfast news show featured part of the sound-clip in which Bale is heard losing his temper with a member of the film crew.

After introducing the Bale item, the word "fucking" was heard almost immediately.

The clip was stopped and the presenters apologised stating that the clip should have been edited.The Ofcom code states that "most offensive language must not be broadcast before the watershed".

The BBC explained to Ofcom that two versions of the Bale rant item existed in its production database – one containing the most offensive language and one with this language bleeped out for transmission.

Apparently the original unedited version was played by mistake because the two different versions were not clearly labelled.

Along the same lines ... but it's a very, very safe bet that it's a clever publicity stunt ... is Gary Oldman's absolutely hilarious tirade ostensibly aimed at a bunch of TV or magazine journalists who appear to be pursuing/harassing him. It's all about a movie that must need some advertising -- because this is just about the best kind of advertising it could get. God knows, even I want to see it now, to figure out what the brewhaha is about! Have a butcher's at this:

I laughed and laughed. And I'm honestly curious to know what the heck The Perfect Sleep is all about. Good one, guys: the advertising worked ... and you got the Internet to spread it "virally" for nothing, right?! Glad to help.

Richard Dean Anderson fans: you want good news to wind up today's business?! It couldn't be better, and AG is wearing a mile-wide smile!

Cast an eye upon this, from Reuters:

"It will take more than twine, bubble gum and a pencil to do it, but the science-oriented adventure series "MacGyver" is being developed as a feature film for New Line.

"MacGyver" ran from 1985 to 1992 on ABC. Richard Dean Anderson, later of "Stargate: Atlantis" and "SG-1" fame, starred as an incredibly resourceful secret agent for the Phoenix Foundation who frequently would escape from dangerous situations with ingenious and lightning-quick engineering trickery.

Two telefilms starring Anderson aired in the years after the show's cancellation. The character eventually achieved enough cultural recognition to become a reference for anyone attempting to jury-rig a solution out of household items. "Saturday Night Live" took the concept to the next level with its "MacGruber" spoofs starring Will Forte.

Raffaella De Laurentiis, daughter of veteran producer Dino De Laurentiis, is producing the movie through her Raffaella Prods. along with Martha De Laurentiis and series creator Lee Zlotoff. Dino De Laurentiis is executive producing.

No writer has been hired. The studio hopes to find a script that acknowledges the concept's pop-culture profile yet still makes for a serious and fun adventure movie.

Monday, March 23, 2009

This, from the Windy City Times ... and don't you just love this? Bromance. Has to be the cutest term dreamed up for the "zone between the clear-cut genders" since someone in the UK coined "omnisexual" ...

From the “Whatdya-Call-It-If-2-Guys-Really-Really-Like-Each-Other-But-Ahem-Aren't-Gay?” file, the Chicago Tribune ( Dec. 16 ) and the Chicago Sun-Times ( Dec. 31 ) more-or-less jointly announce the “bromance.” The Trib lists the TV shows Scrubs with J.O. & Turk, House with House & Wilson, Heroes with Hiro & Ando, Entourage with Vince & Eric and How I Met Your Mother with Ted & Barney, while the Sun-Times had a story on Boston Legal with Denny & Alan. All of these pairs would be married if they were gay ( and it was legal ) ; they are thisclose. The Sun-Times even shows a pic of Denny ( William Shatner ) and Alan ( James Spader ) , who DO get married for plot reasons waltzing around at the wedding: Spader's the lead. Some movies with this theme are in the offing: there's going to be an awful lot of dialog about how one guy can tell another guy he loves him without being, you know, uhhh, gay.http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=20689

There's a curious little piece running on The Times of India, and it just leaves you shaking your head. I've heard of some dumb things, but this just about takes the cake.

Pitt out of film for his good looksHollywood superstar Brad Pitt is out of upcoming movie State of Play as the director on hindsight felt he was too good-looking to play the role.Pitt was originally to star in the big-screen thriller as a journalist but the actor quit during pre-production, citing concerns with the script, contactmusic.com reports. Gladiator star Russell Crowe was roped in as a late replacement for Brad to star opposite actor Ben Affleck's character of a Congressman in the film. Director Kevin McDonald is convinced that Crowe's rough features are more suited to the role. "In a way, I was lucky it didn't work out with Brad. The relationship between the journalist and the politician was meant to be between somebody who feels inferior, who's a bit of a schlump, who kind of can't get a girlfriend, and somebody he's looking up to and admires his polished politician friend," he said. "That is not the dynamic of a Brad Pitt. He's not looking up to anyone thinking 'Oh, I wish I could have your girlfriend'," he added.

Here's the rub, boys and girls: THE MAN IS AN ACTOR. He isn't actually Achilles. Nor doe she race about machine-gunning people. Nor was born at age 90 and grow younger throughout life. All these parts are ACTING.

And he's not supposed to be able to act the part of someone who looks up to others and envies their girl friends?!

I would venture to say that if Mr. Pitt decided to play the part of a blind leper, he'd do just fine. Being an ACTOR. Professionally. Meaning, "getting paid to do the job and being bloody good at it."

Anyway, Russell Crowe will also be just fine, but -- and Russ, we love you, man! --it's just the principle of the thing, you know?!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

And it's happy birthday to Matthew Broderick, who turns 46 today (same age as AG). Is it really 25 years since Ladyhawke?! Good gods, it is. I mean ... that's a quarter of a century! I was a mere child when I sat in the dark, eating popcorn and watching Rutger Hauer turn into a wolf, and Matthew Broderick picking locks --! Marvelous memories, which I relive every time I play the DVD. Here's a bit of trivia for you: did you know, Ladyhawke was only his fourth credited role? True.

And Matthew Broderick went on to do loads of great projects, not just as an actor (for instance, Godzilla), but also as a voice artist (ex., The Lion King). In fact, I'm remembering all the way back to Wargames, and wishing I had a DVD of that one. Note to self: get one!

So -- happy birthday, man! Have a great one. (And now, shut up AG, and paste in the pictures -- sheesh, you think people visit this page because they want to listen to you babble on?)

It's also happy birthday to Gary Oldman today ... and I can't believe he's 51. Mind you, I've enjoyed his movies for a couple of decades now, so I guess he must be!

His roles are so diverse, you're just left blinking. He has a gift for accents that is quite the equal of Johnny Depp ... in fact, I don't think I've heard Gary Oldman sound the same in two consecutive movies! My favorites from among his movies? It's almost impossible to choose. Immortal Beloved, Air Force One, The Dark Knight, The Fifth Element, Lost in Space ... the Harry Potter movies ...?! Like I said, utterly impossible to choose.

So I'm not going to choose -- I'm just going to nominate Gary Oldman as one of my most favorite actors, wish him Happy Birthday, and get on with the eye candy ... which is the whole reason you're on this page anyway, right? (In other words, shut up already, AG, and paste in the pictures. Right.)

Welcome to...

How's this blog rated? You'll see some hot bods on this page, and occasionally it'll get somewhat raunchy. I'd rate this page MA 15+, but you make up your own mind...

To one and all: my most sincere apologies for the patchiness of my posting in the last year. I started the blog when I was something l ike "between jobs," and then scored something like 1.5 jobs at all the wrong hours. There hasn't been time to post, but someone said to me the other day, "Make time." Okay, well that's easier said than done. But I'm going to give it a shot, because I used to love posting here. Beautiful guys, great movies, humor -- how could you go wrong? So let me see if I can get back to you more frequently!

About Me

I'm a voracious reader ... I read a lot of gay books. I'm a "proofie," or proofreader for Mel Keegan and DreamCraft, which means (evil chuckle) I get to read the new MK novels weeks and months ahead of the rest of the world.

See who's reading?

Adelaide Weather

AG says -- take this nit-wit of a pixie with a pinch of salt. It's 92F in the backyard right here, and she says it's 79. Yeah, right. Where do they get their feed?! Want the real thing? Try this url: http://www.bom.gov.au -- that's our local Bureau of Meteorology, and them you can believe ... but they don't have the cute feed.

Download your tunes...

Home theater? Got it covered:

Dangerous Moonlight

Fantastic news -- for AG at least: my all-time favorite gay historical novel just became available at Amazon!

Small world...

Another commercial break...

Copyright and so forth...

Absolutely NO claim to copyright is made on any image appearing on this page!! I am not a photographer or an artist. Therefore, all photos and other images on this page are the work of talented visual artists, and if I have a credit (which is rare) or a backlink (even more rare), I'm delighted to use them. Absolutely NO claim to copyright is made on the textual quotes drawn from other websites, and backlinks and citations are ALWAYS quoted. Hope you guys score some visitors. However ... I do claim copyright on my own input. Which means, if you want to quote me, just give me the citation and the backlink, and we're all happy. Thank you kindly.